CHISINAU, April 19. /TASS/. Governor of the autonomous Gagauzia region of Moldova, Yevgenia Gutsul, called Russophobic the language policy of Chisinau in her statement made to TASS.

Gutsul was referring to the demand the People's Assembly of Gagauzia made for Moldovan legislators to uphold the status of Russian as the language of interethnic communication in the region.

"The Russian language de facto remains the language of interethnic communication in our country. We consider it absolutely logical that this status should again be enshrined in law. At the same time, of course, we understand that the current Russophobic central government in Chisinau will resist this initiative," Gutsul said.

Gutsul noted that the Executive Committee of Gagauzia, to which she is Chairwoman, "fully supports the initiative of the People’s Assembly."

The head of the autonomous Gagauzia region pointed out that there are three official languages in Gagauzia: Gagauzian, Russian and Moldavian. "And the Russian language, as it has been the case over the past few centuries, is our language of interethnic communication. It is in Russian that the Gagauz, Bulgarians, Russians, Ukrainians, Jews, Roma and representatives of other nationalities communicate with one another. This is a normal, established practice, thanks to which we have never had interethnic conflicts in the region," said the head of the autonomy.

The language issue in Moldova is a sensitive one. In 1989, in the wake of "perestroika", the population of Transnistria and Gagauzia demanded that Russian, along with Moldovan, be legalized as a second official language, as it was spoken by almost 90% of the country’s population. However, the Moldovan parliament refused, declaring Russian a language of interethnic communication, and Moldovan the sole official language. This resulted in the conflict in Gagauzia, the war in Transnistria, and ultimately the split of the country.

The debate over language flared up after the Action and Solidarity Party came to power. A large fraction of the party believes that Moldova should unite with Romania. On their initiative, the name of the official country language in the constitution was changed from Moldovan to Romanian, and Russian was deprived of its status of the language of interethnic communication.